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JACQUELINE DORMER/Staff Photographer
Andrew J. Drebitko Jr., Minersville, looks at a newspaper clipping of the Sheppton Mine Disaster at the home of his late father, Andrew J. Drebitko, who volunteered to descend into the mine through a borehole to search for Louis Bova in August 1963.

EDITOR'S NOTE: So many people have stories to tell about the Sheppton Mine Disaster. These are from numerous phone calls the Standard-Speaker received after publication Aug. 15 of a special section commemorating the 50th anniversary of the incident.

Emily Fellin Balko canned red beets the Tuesday morning the Oneida No. 2 Slope outside the village of Sheppton collapsed, burying her brother, David, and two other miners more than 300 feet below ground.

Fifty years later, she remembers the phone call from her sister-in-law, saying Davey was trapped. Balko, a widow with three young children, could do little more than imagine the worst.

"I could picture all three of them," she said, wondering if they were injured, pinned under a rock or dead. "From the beginning it seemed almost impossible (to survive.) Your better sense would tell you that."

Still, Balko phoned her brother, Joseph Fellin, who immediately went to the mine to see what he could do and lend his assistance.

"No one ate that afternoon," the now-91-year-old Balko said.

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Some 30 miles away at another mine site, Clyde Renninger and his brother-in-law, the late Andrew J. Drebitko, also received telephone calls about the cave-in.

The men, members of the Independent Miners Association, immediately mobilized a rescue truck they had equipped with lights and tools as they had so many times before and headed to the mine site between Sheppton and Oneida.

With hundreds of independent mines in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania, collapses happened frequently, said Drew Drebitko, Andrew's son. Renninger estimates they took the rescue truck out a least once a week.

Other local miners joined them at the Oneida No. 2 mine site, as did state mining officials and family members. The mine continued to rumble as coal, rock and timbers shifted hundreds of feet below in the days after the initial collapse, Renninger said.

He remembers officials going into the shaft toward the blockage to inspect the site.

"They used to go into the main entrance to six sets of timbers and they heard the rumbling," he said. "They had to get their fannies up out of there."

Mining officials held little hope of rescuing the men in the first few days after the cave-in on Aug. 13, 1963, and planned to fill in the void and drive a parallel shaft to recover the bodies, said Larry Croll, Joseph Fellin's grandson, who was 11 at the time.

Croll said his grandfather fought the plan, feeling certain that his brother and the other miners, Henry Throne and Louis Bova, were alive.

"He was sure the men would have survived the initial rush of rock down the shaft and had a good idea where they would have sought shelter," Croll said. "He proposed drilling the 6-inch boreholes to try to establish contact."

Drilling was an option on the table from day one, said Drew Drebitko, who has all of his father's newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, mining documents and personal papers from the disaster.

"Thank God they investigated and they could get drills in," said Balko, who remembers her brother's insistence on drilling and how nerve-wracking the experience was for the family.

Once they decided to drill, the question that remained was where. Old-time miners familiar with the mine offered mining officials input, as did independent miners and family.

"There was a lot of engineering, but there was a tremendous amount luck in finding them," said Drew Drebitko. "My dad said there was so much arguing going on, not arguing, but differences of opinion of where to drill that Gordon Smith (state deputy secretary of mines) walked over and stepped down, and said, 'Drill right here.' That's how much engineering went into that," he said.

A stake marked the spot to drill, but the drilling rig never reached the stake, said Al Roman, who was on site with Louis Pagnotti Sr. of Pagnotti Enterprises. Roman remembers there being only 40 feet of electrical cable on the truck that had the generator - and it broke an axle, he said, and that's the spot they drilled on.

The drill droned on for 28 hours, breaking through to the mine workings at 9:25 p.m. on Aug. 18 - more than five days after the first collapse. David Fellin's friend, John Biros, shouted down the 320-foot hole and got a reply. Fellin's brother, Joseph, and other family members had been right - the men survived.

"Don't tell me that wasn't somebody that had something to do with that," Roman said. "If this wasn't a miracle by Jesus I don't know one."

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The media also hailed it as a miracle and news of the trapped miners being found alive circled the globe. Reporters from all over the world descended on the sleepy little village of Sheppton.

Thousands of miles away in Vietnam, Jim Paulshock and other soldiers read about the efforts to reach three miners on the front page of Pacific Stars and Stripes published Aug. 22, 1963.

Paulshock, who grew up a son of a coal miner in Hazle Township, kept his edition for 50 years and remembers his surprise when he saw a major story about the area where he grew up while in a jungle serving his country.

As the word spread, people flocked to Sheppton hoping for another miracle - a rescue.

"Once they found them a lot of people started showing up," said Art Whitaker, who was commander of the Pennsylvania National Guard unit in Hazleton which had been training at Fort Indiantown Gap when the cave-in occurred.

State police were overwhelmed with masses, who were interfering with the rescuers and taking souvenirs, Whitaker said. Congressman Dan Flood, who Whitaker knew, contacted Gov. William Scranton to mobilize the guardsmen to assist troopers who were being bused in from Reading, he said.

Whitaker and 30 of his men drew rations and headed to Sheppton, where hundreds of cars lined both sides of the two-lane highway, he said. He remembers telling one of his men to count the number of different license plates along the road one day and the tally came in at 41 different states plus Canada.

Whitaker reported to state Mine Secretary H. Beecher Charmbury, who he said had control of the entire operation, including the state troopers. Charmbury told him that he was now a captain in the state police, he said, and troopers saluted him as an officer of rank when he passed.

Whitaker kept one of his men assigned to Charmbury at all times to relay orders back to the guardsmen, he said, because they didn't have the technology available today.

"We set up barricades," he said. "The crowds ... some got out of hand. We were being abused. They cursed at us. We weren't armed. We only had billy cubs."

Whitaker told his men to use the radios mounted inside the Jeeps as a weapon of sorts, he said. He instructed them to say over the radio that the captain was coming down with more men. People could hear the radio, he said, and that calmed them down.

Other shenanigans went on inside and outside the barricades, he said.

Whitaker remembers a young man walking around with a stethoscope around his neck and medical clothes, talking to the media.

"He said he was a Marine doctor, but the Marines didn't have doctors," he said.

The young man turned out to be a college student from Philadelphia on his summer vacation, Whitaker said. The Drebitko family remembers the same young man handing out pills to the rescuers, said Sharon Drebitko Kolenick, Andrew's daughter.

One of the trapped miners, Throne, served in Whitaker's guard unit but cycled out, Whitaker said. Throne, who along with Fellin had been talking with rescuers via a microphone while they drilled an escape hole, asked to talk to one of his friends in the unit, he said.

Throne wanted to hear a joke, Whitaker said. A radio broadcaster from either Kentucky or Tennessee was broadcasting the conversation and the joke, which was completely innocuous, until the punch line, he said. Hearing the punch line, he pulled the microphone away, exclaiming, "Oh my God," Whitaker said with a laugh.

Another day, a bubble helicopter landed outside the perimeter, Whitaker said. The pilot and a reporter got out and left the helicopter, he said. While they were gone, a child jumped inside and started playing with the controls, having a good time, he said.

Whitaker shooed him away, but said he can't be certain the young man didn't return.

As the drill inched closer to the miners and their rescue seemed near, Whitaker received orders to clear a path to the Red Cross tent, where the miners would be taken before being loaded onto Marine helicopters and flown to Hazleton State General Hospital.

But television crews set up scaffolding all around the site to broadcast the rescue around the world, he said. He asked the one in the direct path to move out of the way, but the cameraman refused, giving him a hard time, he said.

Whitaker got some of his men and gathered them around the scaffold, saying they were going to move it with or without him on it, he said.

"He got off," Whitaker said.

Guardsmen also grabbed another cameraman hiding in the woods near the helicopters, he said. Whitaker believes the man hoped to snap a photograph of the miners being loaded onto the helicopters.

Whitaker returned to the site for the first time in 50 years a little more than a week ago and said he couldn't believe how the landscape had changed.

"It was a different world. I couldn't figure out where the helicopters landed," he said. "I can't believe it's the same place."

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Hearing the trapped miners' voices thrilled their families and lent them hope, but no one knew if they could be rescued as coal and rock continued to slide down even after contact was made.

"For a whole week, it was all so very uncertain," Balko said.

Croll agreed, saying the family dealt with great stress and a "roller coaster of emotions" as the rescue efforts kicked into high gear.

"Each day brought some successes but many more delays, problems and failures," he said. "All knew that the clock was ticking and that each delay lowered the chance for any of the three to make it out alive.

"The plan to rescue the men via a large borehole drilled down from above to a collapsing survival space was unheard of, untried, and very risky," Croll said.

Croll, who was staying with his grandparents for a week in the middle of the disaster, remembers the rescue site being a constant flurry of activity with the family kept on a hill above the shaft near the tipple.

"The noise of the air compressors and large generators that accompanied the drill rigs was deafening," he said, adding the drills and vehicles kicked up clouds of dust that reduced visibility.

A bulldozer cut in a new road to bring in the large drilling rigs, he said. Three rigs operated on the site, including one from Pagnotti and one from Sprague and Henwood of Scranton.

Patricia Holly remembers her father, Nicholas Holly, who worked for Sprague and Henwood, bringing home core samples from the site to show his children. Holly later became friends with Dave Fellin, and they would often visit and reminisce, she said.

Pagnotti felt enormous pressure to free the miners, said Roman, of No. 1 Contracting, especially now that everyone knew they were alive.

"Once they're known to be alive, then 'you killed them' if you don't get them out," he said. "(Pagnotti) would tell me almost every morning, 'Don't tell me it can't be done.' Without him, this wouldn't have happened."

The company pulled men off road projects and put three shifts on at Sheppton, he said. Roman remembers he, Pagnotti and millionaire Howard Hughes talking about the drilling rig and a bit large enough to carve a hole to free the men.

Hughes, of the Hughes Tool Co. fortune, told them to have a plane in Mineral Rose, Texas, and he'd have a bit for them.

"At the time, there were no bits that size (nearby). We took all of the seats out the plane except the pilots', because it was too heavy for the plane to carry the drill (bit) otherwise," Roman said. "We still have the bit and we still use it today."

While area men worked on the rescue, women from the local garment factories pitched in and sewed together dozens of long bags to send food, drinks, blankets and other supplies down the 6-inch borehole to the miners, Croll said.

"As I remember, the bags were 6 inches wide, 12 to 15 inches long and had a drawstring closure on the open end," he said. "I remember that coffee and hot soup were favorites on the list of things sent down to Davey and Hank."

The Red Cross and Salvation Army provided 24-hour assistance at the site, Croll said. The Red Cross tent was near the drilling sites, while the Salvation Army located near the tipple and the crowds, he said.

"They provided free, 24-hour food service to the hundreds of family, relatives, rescue workers, mine officials, news, radio and television reporters," Croll said. "They had an endless supply of coffee, tea, hot soups, plus foods, desserts and sweets of every description. From my young perspective, most of the food at the Salvation Army tent was fresh made from the local community."

Whitaker's men, too, were fed at the Salvation Army tent, he said. He struck up a deal that his men could pass through the line, giving the Salvation Army all of his men's rations in exchange, he said.

Additional food came from the auction in Schuylkill Haven, where all of the merchants were asked for donations, Renninger said.

"They all donated steaks and stuff," he said. "And the priest came and blessed it, and said it was safe to eat all of it."

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Everyone waited and watched as the rescuers sunk a second hole, missing the chamber where Fellin and Throne took refuge.

"Even when they were drilling, I was all prepared ... Something could happen 300 feet down," Balko said. "You didn't feel they were alive until you saw them."

The mine never stopped collapsing, even as the rescue operation moved ahead, said Renninger.

"You could hear it falling from the day we got there," he said. "Every couple of days, they could hear rocks falling."

Rescuers came up with several cage and capsule designs, which were welded together on the site, to bring the miners up, Croll said. Engineers later decided a long capsule could get hung up at a slight bend in the hole and abandoned the plan, he said.

They then decided to bring the miners up in a body harness attached to a cable, and contacted skydivers David Price and Don Kellner for their assistance in rigging up a set of heavy coveralls with parachute harnesses sewn inside, Croll said.

"This combination ensured that the trapped men could easily and correctly don the harness that would hook to the lift cable, and the coveralls provided protection as they slide up the rock shaft on the trip to the surface," he said.

At least three sets were made, Croll said. Two were sent down to Fellin and Throne, along with a tub of axle grease to ease their way up the narrow hole.

Early on the morning of Aug. 27 - 14 days after the collapse - the men ascended from the mine to cheers of onlookers and rescuers and were whisked to the hospital.

The rescue operation wasn't over as numerous attempts to reach the third miner, Bova, who was separated from the others in the cave-in, continued. Additional boreholes were drilled and microphones and cameras lowered to find him.

On Aug. 30, a camera captured an image of what appeared to be a man crouched in a corner. Had they found Bova? They had to know.

Some 20 miners volunteered to go down and explore the void, but they were turned away, Renninger said.

"They were told, 'We have somebody.' We already had Andy," Renninger said of his brother-in-law. "We had him figured from the beginning."

Andrew Drebitko didn't tell his family that, though. His wife, Dorothy, asked him if he was going to be the man who went down to look, and he told her, "Don't worry about it. I'm smart enough to know what I'm doing."

Dorothy Drebitko thought he meant he wasn't going to do it, and was furious when a newsman called to tell her husband was Mr. X. She felt he lied to her - something the couple promised never to do to each other.

"I wasn't too happy he risked his life," she said from her Minersville home. "My husband said, 'How could I live with knowing that a man was there? He has a son.' My words were, 'You have a son and a daughter.'"

A touch of the anger remains in her voice even 50 years later.

"Everyone told me I should be proud and happy, and I guess I would have been if I didn't love him," she said. "I didn't want to see him hurt."

Bova was never found - only a pair of boots, a bucket of grease, a 12-inch diameter plug to block the void and a rope which tangled together that resembled a man.

"It would have bothered him if he didn't go down," Dorothy said.

Drebitko lost his father in the mines when he was 9 and remembered his father being brought home on a wagon and put in the front yard, said his sister, Midge Renninger, Clyde's wife. Her husband also lost a brother in the mines.

To this day, Clyde Renninger can't understand why they never made an effort to reclaim Bova's body, and asserts that they could have brought a shovel in and stripped the ground away, letting the operator keep the coal as payment.

"He's the only man that's down in the mines that never came up," he said. "The only one."

While Andrew Drebitko didn't want any publicity and preferred to stay the anonymous volunteer, Mr. X, his secret was out as soon as he surfaced.

"Gordon Smith told everyone who he was when he came up," Kolenick said.

Smith's daughter later told Dorothy Drebitko how happy she was that her husband went down into the shaft, as her father was next line for the job.

Susan Richter's father, Leon "Bud" Richter, another independent miner, was also an alternate, she said. Nineteen at the time, she remembers the tension and concern.

"It was something I was familiar with," Susan Richter said. "Families were concerned about their husbands, fathers and brothers. It is what occurred after there was an accident. The families steeled themselves and got through it.

"It's just what you do when there was an accident," she said.

The Drebitkos still have boxes of newspaper clips and papers that Andrew saved as a record, as conflicting stories emerged from the rescued miners.

Andrew Drebitko never challenged what Fellin and Throne said, though, his wife said.

"Do you think I'm going to call a man that was 14 days underground a liar?" she remembers him saying. "Maybe he did hear (Bova) in his head or his mind. He might have seen and heard lots of things. So why make a liar out of him?"

In the weeks after the rescue, people sent numerous letters and gifts to Drebitko. He didn't keep any of the tokens, returning them all, except a pair of season tickets to the Alabama football games that a woman sent with no return address. The tickets and a football schedule remain in a scrapbook along with the letters.

Drebitko took away lifelong friendships with Smith and Charmbury, his son said. They also heard from Gov. Scranton from time to time, Kolenick said.

He also remained on the forefront of mine rescues, as officials from all over the world called on him when disasters struck. Drebitko was consulted on a collapse in Germany right after the Sheppton disaster, and later Japan, and more recently Chile and Quecreek in Somerset County.

Throughout his life he refused to take any credit publicly, his family said.

For the Fellins, who took credit didn't matter to the family, said Carol Zielinski, David Fellin's niece and Balko's daughter.

"The end result was the guys came out," she said. "Everyone was so sincere and everyone wanted this. We never thought of it as luck. These guys were really good. These were educated guesses. Uncle Joe knew the mine.

"And there was a lot of good Karma," she said.

Their joy in the rescue, Zielinski and Croll said, had always been tempered by the loss of Bova, whose body remains forever entombed 320 feet below ground.

Staff writer Kent Jackson contributed to this story.

kmonitz@standardspeaker.com

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